WME Agent's Vasectomy & Masturbation In Development For Marriage Sitcom At HBO

EXCLUSIVE: I’ve learned that HBO has just bought a comedy pitch based on the modern day Lucy-&-Ricky 10-year marriage of Brandt and Nikki Joel. Brandt, 45, is head of WME’s talent department, and Nikki, 38, is a former ICM agent. Gilmore Girls and Desperate Housewives writer Jordon Nardino — natch, a WME client — has already been put on the project. The genesis for the show is Nikki Joel’s tell-all blog about her marriage — LifestyleLemonaid.com — where she regularly shares with the Internet her husband’s most intimate details. The time he wanted to have a vasectomy… the time she caught him masturbating in the middle of the night during an earthquake… the time he erased all her Tivo-ed shows because he was pissed she’d gone out 3 nights in a row without him… Both Joels pitched the show in person to HBO along with producer Steve Levinson — “the last guy Nikki blew before she met me”, as Brandt explained to the room. The pay channel’s Sue Naegle and Michael Lombardo bought the pitch right then and there. Plans are to change Brandt’s profession — “there’s only one great agent on TV and that’s Ari Gold,” Brandt told me — but otherwise the couple will be portrayed true to life by Nardino, producers Mark Wahlberg and Levinson, and HBO exec Amy Gravitt. “I just want the show to get on the air,” Brandt said.